Livias

Location

The traditional location of the Roman city is at Tell er-Rameh, a small hill rising in the plain beyond Jordan, about twelve miles from Jericho. However, evidence from the Tell el-Hammam excavations raises questions about this identification. It has been proposed that, while Tell er-Rameh was the commercial and residential center of Livias, the area around Tall el-Hammam, which grew in the Early Roman period, was the administrative epicentre of the city. Archaeological evidence from Shuneh al-Janubiyyah has shown the existence of a church in the diocese, dating from the sixth-eighth centuries. A third Byzantine church was discovered between Tall Kafrayn and Tell el-Hammam (2.6 kilometres (1.6 mi) to the west of Tell el-Hammam) with a large mosaic floor now being used as a Muslim cemetery.

History

Under the name of Betharan, Livias is twice mentioned in the Bible.

At about 80 BC, Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus captured it from the King of the Arabs; it was then called Betharamphtha. In the 1st century AD, Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, fortified it with strong walls and called it Livias after the wife of Augustus; Josephus calls it Julias also, because he always speaks of the wife of Augustus as Julia. Nero gave it with its fourteen villages to Agrippa II. In the First Jewish-Roman War the Roman general Placidus captured it in 68, but after the revolt was quelled, the area was returned to Agrippa. He died without heir, and his territories were annexed to Judaea province. In later reorganizations of Roman provinces, it was included in Syria Palaestina (135), Palaestina (286) and Palaestina Prima (425), never gaining a colonia status.

In the time of Eusebius and St. Jerome the natives still called it Bethramtha. Livias was an episcopal see, a suffragan of the diocese Caesarea in Palaestina. Lequien mentions three bishops:

No longer a residential bishopric, Livias is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.